Brescia, 25 June 2025 – 50 years after becoming the first Italian city to provide itself with district heating infrastructure, Brescia confirms itself as an ecological transition laboratory. In fact, A2A today inaugurated, at its Lamarmora facility, a new data centre designed by the French company Qarnot, which, thanks to an advanced liquid-cooling system, makes it possible to recover thermal energy at temperatures as high as 65°C to input directly into the network and take heat to buildings.
The project is one of the first applications in Italy of heat recovery from a data centre, the first in a city network with the innovative technology of liquid cooling, and takes on a global energy challenge: that of harnessing heat waste from digital infrastructures – in constant expansion and very energy thirsty(1) – in order to produce thermal energy useful for towns and cities. When fully operational, 16 GWh of clean heat will be produced each year, enough to meet the thermal requirements of around 1,350 apartments (2), avoiding the emission into the atmosphere of 3,500 tonnes of CO2 a year, equivalent to the absorption capacity of more than 22,000 trees(3).
Taking part in the event were the Mayor of Brescia, Laura Castelletti, the managing director of A2A, Renato Mazzoncini, and Qarnot CEO Paul Benoit.
"The rapid spread of data centres and increasing electrification of consumption call for major investments in electricity networks in order to meet the growing demand for energy. But it also opens up an extraordinary opportunity for those cities with district heating networks: that of recovering the waste heat of servers and transforming it into thermal energy – explained A2A managing director Renato Mazzoncini. In Lombardy, with projects in the pipeline, it is estimated that 150,000 apartments could be heated simply by capturing residual heat. This not only constitutes a technological advantage but also an asset for urban decarbonization: with district heating 4 .0, the networks become smart systems capable of integrating all thermal wastage and bringing us closer to the target of climate neutrality by 2050. In this sense, Brescia stands out as model, and not only a national one. The pilot project with Qarnot that we are inaugurating today is further proof that immediately integrating energy recovery into the planning of data centres means creating infrastructures that are strategic for the future: more competitive towns and cities, more sustainable regions, heat available where it is needed, all without the need for fossil fuels.”
“Once again, Brescia stands out as a laboratory-city, trialling Increasingly advanced technologies for the improvement of the level of emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere,” – commented the Mayor of Brescia, Laura Castelletti. A crucial role, which can no longer be postponed, in the struggle with climate change; a role which our Administration has undertaken with determination in recent years. As happened with district heating in the 1970s, when Brescia, with Asm, was the first in Italy to make this infrastructure available to its citizens, today we inaugurate a new technology that hones strategies in the struggle with air pollution and marks a step forward in the decarbonisation of the city. We are proud that this laboratory has been opened in Brescia and are convinced that it can become a model in Italy and in Europe. A2A is accompanying us in this evolution, this quest for an increasingly sustainable future.”
“This first project in Italy represents a strategic phase for Qarnot - stated Paul Benoit, CEO and co-founder of Qarnot. Made possible thanks to collaboration with A2A, it allows us to respond to the growing demand of the Italian market for high-performance cloud solutions (HPC), efficient from an energy point of view and able to guarantee a high level of technological autonomy. Our infrastructure is particularly well suited to sectors like the automotive, aerospace, energy and maritime ones, and, in general, all those industries with a high intensity of simulation: spheres which require not only computing power but also the control and security of data, given the strategic challenges that they face. Our model enables us to oversee the entire value chain of the HPC cloud, from the design of low-emission infrastructures to the provision of intensive computing services. Designing data centres able to generate reusable heat, we combine performance, sustainability and the creation of value in the areas served.”
With this initiative, A2A moves forward in its mission to make district heating increasingly sustainable through various projects for the recovery and harnessing of decarbonized heat sources available locally: from that produced by WtE plants and their flue gases to that generated by other industrial sources like the steelworks of Alfa Acciai and Ori Martin, to the use of thermal storage units for hot water.
Thanks to these solutions, which have contributed to the reduction in the use of gas, 83% of the heat distributed in Brescia in 2024 derived from non-fossil sources. A share that is destined to increase further thanks to the contribution of the computational processes of data centres: their functioning generates great quantities of heat which, instead of being dispersed, can be recovered in order to heat buildings without the use of fossil fuels.
For Qarnot, this project represents an important expansion at a European level, made possible thanks to the close collaboration with A2A. Qarnot provides a high-performance, intuitive platform designed to simplify digital simulations (CAE – computer-aided engineering) in the cloud domain. Developed to foster innovation in sectors like aerospace, automotive and energy, the platform makes it possible to handle intensive computing loads while minimising the environmental impact thanks to a low-emission infrastructure. A distinctive feature is the direct control that Qarnot exercises over the entire value chain of its HPC cloud: from the planning of sustainable data centres to the provision of high-performance computing services.
The project
Brescia's district heating network is today one of the largest and most virtuous in Europe: over 684 kilometres of pipelines, 22,000 customers connected (equivalent to 180,000 apartments) and more than 80% of heat produced from non-fossil sources. Now added to these sources is the digital heat of data centres, further enhancing Brescia’s circular energy model.
The Qarnot project is organized in two phases. The first, already operational, comprises 30 QBx clusters able to generate around 800 thermal MWh a year thanks to the liquid cooling which makes it possible to recover heat at temperatures as high as 65°C, suitable for direct use by the district heating network, using heat exchangers. Air cooling, on the other hand, recovers heat at about 30°C with the need to cover the thermal gap by using heat pumps.
Planning of the second phase is already under way. Qarnot 2 foresees the installation of servers in the former coal store of the Lamarmora plant, a symbolic yet concrete reconversion. The project, which has received EU funding, will produce 16 GWh a year of clean thermal energy, able to provide heating and hot water for about 1,350 apartments. The objective is to become operational within the next two years.
The innovative Qarnot technology not only guarantees high-performance computing but also provides quality energy ready to be harnessed in a smart urban system. The development of Artificial Intelligence will require such a high density of power that it will be necessary to use liquid cooling which delivers better performance than traditional systems.
As demonstrated in the Position Paper “Urban sustainability: decarbonisation, electrification and innovation – opportunities and solutions for future-fit towns and cities”, drawn up in collaboration with The European House – Ambrosetti and ASVIS, district heating is one of the key technological solutions in reducing CO2 emissions in Italian towns and cities by more than 50% by 2050. In particular, through specific investments in the recovery of heat waste from industrial and digital sources like data centres. Forward-looking innovation in a world in which increasing digitalization also demands new solutions for urban energy sustainability.
(1) According to the International Energy Agency, by 2030, the electricity requirements of data centres will double compared to 2024, reaching 945 TWh a year – a figure equal to the entire energy consumption of Japan; see “Energy and AI”, IEA www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/executive-summary.
(2) Number calculated on the basis of ARERA data which estimates that an average Italian family consumes 12 MWh a year for heating and hot water.
(3) Figure calculated with reference to the silver birch tree, which, according to the CNR national research council in Bologna, has an average CO2 absorption capacity of 155 kg a year.
For information
A2A
Giuseppe Mariano, Head of Media Relations, Social Networking and Web
Silvia Merlo - Silvia Onni - Davide Bacca, Press office
ufficiostampa@a2a.it
Tel. 02 77204583
Qarnot
Naia Etchecopar, Head of Communication
press@qarnot.com
+33 648263881